Star Wars Battlefront: UPDATE 2: The Missing Content Strikes Back.

[BarryMcCociner]

I actually didn't like the space battles in BF2, the ships just didn't feel "nimble" enough to be satisfying.

I'm fine with no single player CAMPAIGN, the 501st missions were fun aand all but that's just not what I'm in BF2 for. If they were to say there'd be no single player CONTENT I'd laugh in their face for genuinely expecting me to drop money on that.

At the end of the day, this is seeming like a risky purchase and I could just reinstall BF2 instead of purchasing this so I'll probably go do that instead.

 

[Danny Dowling]

I'm kind of excited for the idea of running around as a Storm Trooper third person and shooting the other guys or vise versa. The big I'm not excited for is seeing Vader and Bobo Fett; having to worry about some douche parrying bullets and another flying around all over the place will get irritating as hell.

 

[Doopliss64]

As a huge fan of the original games, and a big skeptic of this particular project I have to say... that I'm actually totally on board with this.

BF2 made a big mistake when they took aerial combat out of "ground battles" and isolated it to space. Combining the two play styles was always a more natural fit for the franchise; ground battles feel more shallow without the inclusion, and space battles alone (while cool in concept) were banal and unsustainable for longer than a few consecutive matches. That particular gameplay element (dogfighting) just wasn't strong enough to sustain an entire core mode with no other options, and the frequency of space battles rapidly outpaced their actual entertainment value.

The single-player campaign has always been a weak feature in this series, so I can't really decry its exclusion - and it should be noted that the game WILL have single-player and coop modes, just not a campaign as such.

And while the exclusion of the prequels is disappointing, I think it's HIGHLY intelligent of them to focus on a smaller number of features to really get at the core of what makes the series engaging. I think it's important to differentiate between "focusing development resources" and giving a "fuck you to fans" or whatever it is people think they're doing. My favorite faction was the Republic, but I'm not going to write off the entire game just because they happened to focus on an area I wasn't as personally invested in.

 

[votemarvel]

No single player means that I lose all interest in the game. I'm rubbish at shooters but will often enjoy the single player.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

No single player, no sale, i have zero interest in online gaming. I know a lot of online gamers will love this but its less content than the previous game. Or will they add this stuff as DLC?

 

[Azure23]

But....I loved the 501st campaign. My brother and I used to play it all the time. It'd often give you new victory conditions or difficult starting points. This is the fucking next gen, why are combined space and planetary battles "too difficult" from a design standpoint? I mean if there's a logical explanation then by all means EA, but until I hear one it just sounds like you're being fucking lazy, or worse, anti consumer. God help you if you think you can add these features in post launch with paid DLC.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So this is going to be pretty much Battlefield with Star Wars skins. As suspected. Not interested.

 

[Morgoth780]

So this is going to be pretty much Battlefield with Star Wars skins. As suspected. Not interested.

Thankfully Battlefront 2 has a whole host of custom map content and sides modes. Battlefront extreme is the best sides mod imo, and then the Ground to Space mappacks were pretty fun as well.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

Quietly pretending the prequels never happened? Did one of the EA execs spontaneously sprout a functioning brain at long last?

 

[Zetatrain]

Wow this has got to be one of the most disappointing announcements I have ever heard.

While I am glad they are putting the starfighters back in with the ground combat, taking out space combat completely is bullshit. Taking out the Prequel stuff is also a boneheaded decision. Say what you will about the Prequels, but large scale ground combat was one thing they did right and it was a blast in BF 1 and 2. Lack of a single player campaign is also frustrating as well as confusing since EA seems to be obsessed with putting single player campaigns in all their multiplayer focus games.

 

[Flammablezeus]

Well I'm glad that I never got my hopes up in the first place. After BF3 I knew Dice couldn't be trusted with anything to do with Star Wars. At least I still have Battlefront 2! That sounds like the far superior game to Battlefront 3.

 

[shrekfan246]

As a huge fan of the original games, and a big skeptic of this particular project I have to say... that I'm actually totally on board with this.

BF2 made a big mistake when they took aerial combat out of "ground battles" and isolated it to space. Combining the two play styles was always a more natural fit for the franchise; ground battles feel more shallow without the inclusion, and space battles alone (while cool in concept) were banal and unsustainable for longer than a few consecutive matches. That particular gameplay element (dogfighting) just wasn't strong enough to sustain an entire core mode with no other options, and the frequency of space battles rapidly outpaced their actual entertainment value.

As someone said above, generally speaking when a feature is weak but adds to the overall quality of the game, the answer for the subsequent title is to improve upon it, not completely remove it. There's absolutely no reason that the space combat couldn't be made better.

And even then, EA is the company that published Wing Commander. How could they, of all publishers, say that space combat is too hard and isn't fun for people?[footnote]Because this sort of announcement stinks of EA PR-speak, and DICE is one of their two biggest current assets so it's not like they're going to ever be far away from the leash.[/footnote]

I'm not going to write the game off entirely, but as someone who has a lot of fun with Battlefront 2 and couldn't give a single toss about Battlefield, getting a Star Wars skin of Battlefield isn't what I was hoping for.

 

[Scow2]

No droids?

OK, my hype has died. They've lost a sale.

EDIT: "The core of Star Wars battles ? the Endors, the Hoths, et cetera ? you want to take that to perfection. You want to do it right."

Screw you developer. The Battle for Endor is easily the worst large scale battle in all six of the Star Wars films, and yes I'm including Gungans versus Battle Droids in that calculation. If there's one thing the Prequels got right it was large scale battles: Geonosis, Naboo and Utapau were all grand battles.

Actually... the battle for Endor was the greatest large-scale battle in the films... but not the ground war. So yeah, DICE/EA really did double-fuck this up. The original trilogy's large-scale battles were all about the Space Battles. The Battle for Yavin (Hit so hard the calender felt it) had absolutely no ground-based combat. The battle for Hoth was the only sizeable ground battle in the entire trilogy, and that was just the Rebels trying to hold off Imperial Forces long enough to not get slaughtered to a man. The battle for Endor was primarily two massive starfleets engaging in a desperation assault, with a small ground insertion (A single Imperial Shuttle worth of Rebel soldiers, mercenary, princess, Jedi, and Wookiee) to assist.

 

[Evonisia]

Snip.

Well, yes. But given the lack of space conflict I chose to omit it given it's lack of relevance. Ditto with the battle above Coruscant which almost seemed to influence or have been influenced by Battlefront II.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I am going to get some serious flak for this, but... the space battles in Battlefront 2 were easily the worst part of the game. They were tedious affairs of going after the same hard targets on the ships and moping up the fighters. Almost every battle played out the same. Hell, in the campaign I remember there actually being the option to skip the space battles entirely. Speaking of the campaign...

Eh, I am not really broken up about the lack of a campaign. BF1 didn't have a campaign. The custom maps and gametypes were where it was at.

What does disappoint me is the lack of prequel content. I always loved playing as the clones.

What I will do is wait and see. What I want ti see is the hero system and the amount of maps. From what I hear it will be on 4 planets, but does that include multiple maps for each planet? I like the look of it, but looks won't sell me on the game... actual gameplay footage will.

 

[Dalek Caan]

What I will do is wait and see. What I want ti see is the hero system and the amount of maps. From what I hear it will be on 4 planets, but does that include multiple maps for each planet? I like the look of it, but looks won't sell me on the game... actual gameplay footage will.

They have said that each planet will have 2 or more maps and the total will above 8. And the free DLC that comes out afterwards might add a planet or two so that's a few more maps.

 

[Squilookle]

Oh well. Guess I'll just watch this one last time to remind myself of the Battlefront we all actually wanted, then put Battlefront out of my mind forever. Goodnight, sweet prince. (And I'm talking about Pandemic and Free Radical here)

​

 

[Happiness Assassin]

What I will do is wait and see. What I want ti see is the hero system and the amount of maps. From what I hear it will be on 4 planets, but does that include multiple maps for each planet? I like the look of it, but looks won't sell me on the game... actual gameplay footage will.

They have said that each planet will have 2 or more maps and the total will above 8. And the free DLC that comes out afterwards might add a planet or two so that's a few more maps.

Thank God! Even in the older games where worlds had multiple maps, they had quite a bit of variety, with Bespin and Rhen Var being favorites (fuck Yavin though).

 

[Flammablezeus]

I am going to get some serious flak for this, but... the space battles in Battlefront 2 were easily the worst part of the game. They were tedious affairs of going after the same hard targets on the ships and moping up the fighters. Almost every battle played out the same. Hell, in the campaign I remember there actually being the option to skip the space battles entirely. Speaking of the campaign...

Eh, I am not really broken up about the lack of a campaign. BF1 didn't have a campaign. The custom maps and gametypes were where it was at.

What does disappoint me is the lack of prequel content. I always loved playing as the clones.

What I will do is wait and see. What I want ti see is the hero system and the amount of maps. From what I hear it will be on 4 planets, but does that include multiple maps for each planet? I like the look of it, but looks won't sell me on the game... actual gameplay footage will.

Do you realise you could land in the enemy capital ships? I loved doing that in space battles and taking down their ship's systems from the inside, before stealing one of their ships and shooting a bunch of them as I flew out to join back in with the dogfighting.

 

[Compatriot Block]

I honestly had more fun with the space battles by goofing around with my brother when I was younger than actually fighting for keeps. While it sucks that they're completely gone, honestly they were never the selling point for me. I liked it more with ships and ground combat on the same map, like in BF1.